


I Love You

by delfo



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cheating, Drogo only mentioned once, Jonerys story, Ygritte not an active character, kind of angst with happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24884644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delfo/pseuds/delfo
Summary: "Why had I thought this could end any other way? There was no way this would have ever ended without my heart being broken. The tears don’t stop. I don’t think they ever will. The pain of losing your soulmate is strong enough to make you cry for the rest of your life and it’s only been about ten minutes for me. Or has it been longer? It could have been minutes or hours since he left me…for her"
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow/Ygritte
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> The tag has been looking a little bleak so here's something that just randomly popped in my head this morning

“This is the best we’ve been in a long time. I just.. I have to give my marriage a shot Dany. A real true shot” he told me as we stood in the middle of my kitchen. Only feet apart yet it felt like it was the furthest we had ever been from each other.

How do you respond to the man you love telling you that he wants to end the off and on relationship you’ve shared for over a decade because he finally wants to give his marriage of three years a ‘real’ shot? Do you have the right to be sad as the other woman?

I nod my head as a traitorous tear slips from my eye. There is no right way to respond, so I don’t.

“I still love you Dany” he says sincerely “and you will always be my best friend. This doesn’t mean we never have to see each other again-“

“Yes” I say quietly shaking my head ‘no’ and then nodding ‘yes’ in a confused maniacal way, because yes it does mean that and no we can’t keep seeing each other “I can’t… I can’t keep doing this Jon. I can’t be just your best friend when you and Ygritte are in a good place and then your lover when you fight. We’re too far past friends to ever go back, and this game of back and forth is not good for me Jon…It’s not”

“Dany” he says dejectedly

“I am not trying to stop you from saving your marriage, but if you leave through that door you leave me” _**Us**_ she thought “for good. I’ll not continue to wait for you Jon. I’ll not continue to be your comfort when your wife is angry at you” the tears fell in earnest now blurring my vision as I looked at him 

He moved forward reaching out for my arm. He has been wanting to touch me, anchor himself to me, for a while. I’ve watched his hands clasp and unclasp at his sides for the past five minutes. For each step he takes I take one in the opposite direction. I am no longer his to touch. I was never his to touch just as he was not mine

“I think you should leave Jon” I choke out lowering my head and staring at the floor. He tries again with a strangled ‘Dany’ and once again I move with him “Please” I whisper but it might as well have been a scream as quiet as the room was. He stood still a moment more before exhaling a shaky breath

“I’m sorry Dany” he sniffs, and knowing that he’s crying makes my tears come even faster. With nothing left to say he leaves and it’s as if part of my heart died when the click of the door shutting echoed throughout the kitchen.

Why had I thought this could end any other way? There was no way this would have ever ended without my heart being broken. The tears don’t stop. I don’t think they ever will. The pain of losing your soulmate is strong enough to make you cry for the rest of your life and it’s only been about ten minutes for me. Or has it been longer? It could have been minutes or hours since he left me…for her.

For the woman I introduced him to. For the woman I pushed him to date all because I was too afraid at the time to admit that the feelings I had for him were more than that of a best friend who occasionally fucked the day lights out of him. I convinced myself that my feelings weren’t real but merely the consequence of spending so much time with someone. Like the stories of those people on reality shows who get close and fuck off (and sometimes on) camera because they’re horny and near each other all the time, but as soon as the show ends they go home to their significant others and never speak to their show partner again.

We were both at the KL Drama Academy and had mingled in the same social group. Group practices turned into just the two of us staying late in the practice rooms which then turned into us practicing in each other’s rooms. Eventually we did more things outside of school and we were nearly inseparable. With so much time spent together of course feelings would get misinterpreted, right?

So when I saw some red head eyeing him all night at a bar I told him, and when he said she was cute I put on my best wingman hat and set out to get them to speak with each other. It worked and they spent all night talking. Soon after they began dating I met Drogo. Two years, a miscarriage, and a heartbreak later we both found ourselves single. Me officially, and Jon taking a break from Ygritte. 

It hadn’t taken long for us to fall into bed with each other again and for over a month we regularly had each other until Ygritte came knocking on his door crying and asking to give them another shot.

Since then that’s how it’s always been. Jon and Ygritte give their relationship another shot and I date a man that I completely regret later. Once my relationship is over and Jon and Ygritte call for a break after some nasty fight, Jon and I fall back into each other’s arms. 

For three more years that continued. After the academy Jon and Ygritte had split for a year while she went back north and he and I continued to live in King’s Landing. It was within that year that I began questioning my feelings. 

Sex felt different. It was no longer just an act, but a deeper way to connect. Our looks held more meaning, our touches were more comforting, and our kisses were more passionate than they had ever been before. A shift was taking place in our relationship and I knew he felt it just as I had. 

I thought we would try it. It was the perfect time to try an official relationship with us sharing an apartment and starting our new adult lives in the capital. But then Ygritte came back and he proposed. It was like a dagger struck through my heart, but what right did I have to be sad when I was the one who made it my job to get them together. So I acted happy in public and held my own pity party in private.

Jon lasted three months into his one year engagement before falling back into my bed. He felt terrible about it, though not terrible enough to tell Ygritte nor stop finding reasons to come see me. He confessed that his relationship didn’t bring him happiness anymore and I confessed that my feelings for him were dangerously deep. I told him that he still had time to call of the wedding if that was what he wanted, but he never did. It wasn’t what his family wanted. He never said it, but I knew.

Ygritte was of the North and her family was well connected and damn near nobility behind the Wall. As the son of Ned Stark, who was trying to build a branch of Stark Industries behind the Wall, it was Jon’s duty to marry Ygritte and make the Stark name known in the far north. So they married and I watched and smiled as a best friend should, trying to mask my tears as those of happiness and not sadness.

They stayed away their first year of marriage moving north, and I focused on myself and my career. Our friendship dissolved, as many long distance relationships eventually do, and life moved on. I landed a major role in a movie franchise and as fate would have it Jon ended up with the part of my love interest. With so much time spent together filming we rekindled our friendship. Ygritte hated it. She hated that he was always so far from her and so close to me. She especially hated when she would facetime him and I would be near. 

At the time our friendship had just been a friendship, but the more Ygritte and Jon fought the more he would seek me out as a way to forget about his problems, and eventually that caused new problems as one day we went to far. After a night out in town we spent a few hours tangled in his sheets Jon. With his arms wrapped around my naked body Jon told me that he had loved me since our first year of drama school and that he wished it was me he had married. I wished the same and for two years after that conversation we lived as if that had been true.

Every night we slept together and every morning we kissed each other goodbye as we left for filming at different times. Ygritte would come up to visit him occasionally or he would go north during breaks and we would be without the other for weeks at a time, but so long as filming continued we would come back to each other. But now filming was over and so was our relationship.

It couldn’t continue. Not after Ygritte had begged for him to go to marriage counseling with her and he had come back wanting to give his marriage one final try.

Not after I called him over to my house to give him the news about a surprise twist in our life only for him to break my heart again. No, it couldn’t continue…

I think someone is calling my name. The voice, sounding muffled as if I’m underwater, is getting louder and louder as the time goes and suddenly I’m being shook. All at once my mind comes back to me. It’s my mother; violet eyes filled with concern as she asks me questions

_Daenerys! Are you ok?  
What’s wrong?  
Why haven’t you been answering your phone?  
Why are you sitting in cold water?  
How long have you been in this bath?_

Bath? Looking down I see that I’m fully dressed in my tub, cold water up to my neck. How did I get here I wonder? Was the water always this cold or have I just been in here that long? How long has it been since Jon left me? Minutes, hours, days?

“Let’s get you out of here” my mother says pulling me out of the tub. My legs are unsteady as I hold on to her shoulders trying to regain my balance. She pulls my wet clothes off before grabbing for a towel and drying my body. She never asks me to help; she knows I can’t. This isn’t the first time I’ve dissociated. No, Rhaego was the first time. I know she hopes this is the last time though. I hope so too.

She moves me to the bedroom once she finishes drying me and I stand in the middle of the room as she searches my drawers for pajamas. She fishes out an oversized t-shirt and my favorite pair of fuzzy winter socks putting them on me. She lays me in the bed so that my head is in her lap and she combs her fingers through my hair like she did when I was a girl. When life was easier.

She waits, not asking for me to explain but giving me the time to do so if I wish

“I’m pregnant” I sob curling further into myself. Her hands still for a moment before continuing their ministrations

“Jon’s?” she asks and I can only nod, the sobs racking through my body too strong to push out any words. My mother has known about my relationship with Jon for years, and it was she along with my best friend Missandei who would always tell me that I needed to end it for my own good. “Does he know?” she asked and I shook my head

“He wants to give his marriage another shot” I cry “I told him if he left it was over, and he chose her over me…again”

I cried myself to sleep in my mother’s arms and when I woke the next day at noon she had my bags packed and a plane ticket to Valyria paid for. She was sending me to our family home to cope and find myself again. My brother Rhaegar and his family were already there in case I needed someone to talk to, and she and Viserys would make the trip there soon. 

Without complaints I grab my bags and my cat Drogon and I head towards the airport.

Months pass and I keep my word. I haven’t spoken to Jon since he left my house in King’s Landing. I’ve gone off the grid and my absence has been noticed by fans and media alike. I don’t care though, I have enough things to deal with and I’d prefer to deal with it in private rather than with millions of people shouting their opinions at me. The last thing I need is for it to get out that I’m pregnant by my married co-star. Not only will the press have a field day, but Jon would find out and what would I do then.

I’ve been speaking with a therapist as my family wished. It’s done me good these last seven months. It’s helped me keep the darkness out and prepare myself for the day that I bring new life in to my world.



It was my mother and brother entering the hospital with “It’s a girl” balloons that set off the social media alarms. Someone had recognized them from the many times they had been photographed with me, and they had posted the picture of them online. Within hours my name was a trending topic on Twitter, and the sentence ‘Actress Daenerys Targaryen gives birth in Valyria’ was plastered on every blog in Westeros.

Questions on why I hid my pregnancy and conspiracy theories on the father of my child came from every direction, and most of the theories hit too close to home. My phone rang from calls of friends who I hadn’t spoken to in a while and calls from _him_.

He was the most persistent, calling and texting every day demanding answers. No doubt the press was hounding him too asking him if he was the father and he had no answer to give them. I felt bad for not responding, but I had not the time nor was I ready to speak with him about everything. I was learning how to take care of two babies for Christ’s sake.

I went back in hiding. Cut my phone off completely, and only spoke to those who already knew the situation. I stayed in Valyria for three more months as the story died down. Thankfully social media had a short attention span and some young celebrity getting arrested had taken the focus off of me.

I flew back home in the middle of the night and had been settled for a week before _he_ showed up at my door one night. He looked sad as he stood out on the porch

“Hi Dany” he said softly

“Hi Jon”

We just stared at each other quietly before without a word I moved to the side to invite him in. Whatever conversation we had would be better held in the privacy of my home than outside on my porch.

He followed me to the living room and I moved the various baby blankets and toys to make room for us to sit down. Turning back towards him I see him holding the baby monitor with wide eyes.

“Twins?” he breathed out looking up at me

“Rhaenyra and Rhaelle” I say moving to sit down on the couch. His thumb brushes lovingly over the screen of the monitor

“Were you ever going to tell me?” he asked not taking his eyes off the girls sleeping forms

“Yes” I say “It’s why I called you over that day”

His eyes snap up meeting mine and I can see the pain in them. He sits down next to me on the couch, monitor still in his hands as if he can’t bring himself to let it go.

“We’re getting divorced” he admits “I gave her the papers before catching the flight here” I nod my head

“Is that good news or bad news?” I ask

“Not good or bad, just…news” he replies “I’m sorry Dany, for everything” 

“I’m sorry too” I reply and before anything more can be said the shrill cry of a hungry baby was released. I smile a little at Jon’s wide eyes looking once more at the monitor, knowing that for some reason the cries made the situation much more real. “Would you like to meet your daughters?” I ask standing from the couch and walking towards the stairs. I didn’t need to turn around to know he was following closely behind.

We walk through the second floor to the nursey and Jon takes in the sight of the pastel colors adorning the walls as we enter, the room much different from the office it had been the last time he saw it. I grab a fussy Rhaenyra out of her crib clutching her closely as I rock her to help her settle. Jon looks over in wonder with glazed eyes until a wet gargle pulls his attention to the second crib. He looks towards me in question.

“Go ahead” I say walking over to the rocking chair to begin feeding Rhaenyra

He lifts Rhaelle gently out of her crib being careful to support her neck and head as he hums a simple song to keep her from crying. He smiles brightly as she stretches and yawns in his arms.

“She’s beautiful Dany” Jon says never taking his eyes off of his daughter and my eyes go misty at the sight, because this may be the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. He looks up towards me, eyes bright and full of love, and I know then that it had all been worth it. 

He walks over, Rhaelle tucked carefully and comfortably against his chest, and he kneels down at my side. Gently and without a word his thumb swipes a tear off of my cheek before his hand cradles my head and he draws me in for a kiss. It’s soft and slow and somehow manages to say the words neither had uttered to each other in a year.

‘I love you’


End file.
